One
of the most anticipated plug-in electric vehicles to be unveiled this
year is the Nissan Leaf and we are getting closer to the launch date
for the vehicle. Motor
Trend reports
that Leaf
production has started in Japan and the plant building the
EVs will be the model for future Leaf production facilities around
the world.

The Leaf is being built in the Nissan Oppama
facility in Japan which has a production capacity of 50,000 units
right now. Presumably, that capacity can be increased in the future
if needed. Once the vehicle is in full swing and the demand
increases, Nissan will roll out similar assembly lines to plants in
Smyrna, Tennessee and the Sunderland plant in England.

The
U.S. assembly line will have a production capacity of 150,000 units
per year at full tilt and the Sunderland plant will be good for
50,000 Leaf vehicles that will be used to meet demand in England and
Europe. Nissan will take lessons learned in the assembly process at
the Oppama facility and roll those tricks out to the other
manufacturing plants as needed.

"Oppama will serve as the
'Mother Plant' for the production of Nissan Leaf," said
Hidetoshi Imazu, Nissan's executive VP of manufacturing. "We
will use all of the know-how and learnings from Oppama to ensure the
highest quality at all sites that manufacture Nissan EVs."

Nissan
revealed in March that the Leaf's price
will be $32,780 before the $7,500 federal tax rebate. Nissan
will also be offering a lease on the Leaf at $349 per month with the
rebate coming to Nissan rather than the buyer.

The
EV is good for 100 miles on a single charge and will have a top speed
of 87 mph. Nissan is also reportedly considering offering Leaf buyers
a rental
car for longer trips when needed.

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The sooner they get these all electric vehicles into blonder hands, the sooner I can start offering a service to drive out to where someone is dead on the side of the road and charge them to give them a quick charge. I have a 2,000 watt generator waiting.

With a typical inverter generator, you'll need to convert back to DC to charge these batteries. Why do that? Just keep it DC and avoid the conversion losses. At home, you don't have a choice but if you're going to do this as a service, don't do it that way. Get yourself a 12hp Hatz diesel engine and pair it with a 300A alternator with an external multistage voltage regulator. That will cut down on the time and fuel usage over a generator.

PS - Probably won't work cause LI batteries require different charging protocols. I have no idea what those are.

It's not about efficiency, it's about the "customer" being stranded on the side of the road with no more juice in their cells. The basic idea is to be able to charge someones batteries enough to get them home, slightly lighter in the pocketbook, of course.

I have the 2,000 watt generator for small time welding and for camping.

I was referencing when he runs out of "gas" so to speak. When his batteries deplete, he'll be on the side of the road without a place to charge up. That's when the gas users will be laughing at him. *Sigh* for having to explain.

First of all you said "broken down" in your op.. So his reply is valid.

Second just like you dont run out of gas before going to a gas station in your dino car I wont run out of "juice" electric power before going home.

Third The Nissan Leaf has a GPS system that is tied to the battery power-level system that work together to calculate and warn you far in advance of your maximum range from home or nearest charge station so you dont go beyond by mastake.

Nissan I Thank you for allowing me to never stop at a gas station EVER again. =)

You guys have a sh*ty power grid and need to fix it anyway, and then you say: "oh, e-cars are bad because we have a sh*ty power grid" ?!

You already need to fix your grid anyway, so just get to it, NOW rather than after more blackouts occur!! And then you won't have any problems with e-cars.

Remember that, no matter what some people would like, e-cars will not replace all other cars in 1 year or in 5 years for that matter. So you have plenty of time to take action now and fix the damn grid.

And in the meantime, lots of e-cars will start to be there are using the grid... in 5 years we should hope that most cars sold/produced are e-cars or hybrids with 100+ miles of electric autonomy. Which means most new cars would not need to go to the pump. Still, you should find how many cars in your country have less than 5 years? And of those, not all will be electric... so it will be a progressive change... like all changes. So start fixing your grid and stop whining about it already!! Stop seeing problems, go for the solutions!!

Nobody was saying this when people were installing central air air conditioning systems, which I believe, take up more power than the slow charging system on this vehicle. A good central air system will run maybe 8KW. This is for a 50,000 BTU system to cool an entire house. If I understand correctly, even under quick charge conditions (3 hours to full) the leaf won't draw any more than that. And it'll most likely draw that power at NIGHT. Which is when the power grid is under the least strain, because all of the office buildings, their ACs, and the lights in all the homes are OFF. Thus, your argument is somewhat fail.

Additionally, this won't actually require the construction of new power plants, as I mentioned above, the majority of charging will occur at night time. Since it's off peak, we won't need more peak generation capacity. It's unlikely that in a given month, the average person would have more than 1 or 2 days when they need an additional 100 miles of range.

Electric cars cannot compete in the marketplace without heavy (>20% subsidies)tax payer support. The battery packs rely on the availability of rare earth metals which are 90 percent controlled by our old friend Communist China, who also owns most of our international debt. And wait until you find out the real cost of trying to recyce those environmentally unfriendly heavy metals and acids found in the battery packs. Guess who will pay for that? At the same time, ever increasing energy efficient gasoline vehicles are achieving real gas mileage as good as hybrids and real operating efficiency better than any electrics. Also proven oil resources are increasing each year not decreasing as has been predicted for the past 40 years or more. So once again we taxpayers get stuck with the bill. At a time when we can't seem to figure out how government can stop rising unemployment (except for government workers) it seems like a good idea to cut all government subsidies and let electrics compete just like automobiles have historically done in the past.